So like you did read the EULA for your Kindle, the one in which they basically say they'll fry all your purchases for hacking?

The Kindle has a security hole wider than that found on the iLiad and could be more easily hacked than the iLiad ever was. But the iLiad needed to be hacked. The units didn't do what they were supposed to do: they'd taken our money and not delivered what they promised. I never felt so ripped off in my life and by Phillips no less!

My Kindle does everything they told me it would. Amazon stands behind it with their customer service and constantly make fresh wonderful content available on a near daily basis. They made it clear they don't want anyone playing with it and I have no reason to get my wonderful ebook collection fried.

Well, like, it doesn't do everything I want it to do. I would like the ability to pan and zoom an image. A map of Europe rendered to 5"x3.5" is useless to me. I spend a fortune every year with Amazon and I can't imagine that they give a damn what I do with my Kindle as long as I don't hack the DRM or try to defraud them in any way--which I certainly have no intention of doing. If someone built some software to improve the Kindle, where's the harm? Igor did a lot more hacking of the Kindle that I ever will. I just want to be able to see the pictures.

By the way, I did register my complaint with Amazon and I got no reply.

Well, like, it doesn't do everything I want it to do. I would like the ability to pan and zoom an image. A map of Europe rendered to 5"x3.5" is useless to me. I spend a fortune every year with Amazon and I can't imagine that they give a damn what I do with my Kindle as long as I don't hack the DRM or try to defraud them in any way--which I certainly have no intention of doing. If someone built some software to improve the Kindle, where's the harm? Igor did a lot more hacking of the Kindle that I ever will. I just want to be able to see the pictures.

By the way, I did register my complaint with Amazon and I got no reply.

Dave E

The problem is that the Kindle's eBook format AZW is just a slightly modified Mobipocket format. And thus you have the issue of old technology developed for screen of a small size such as PDA and cell phones. So images tend to be small when dealing with a 6" eink screen. I was looking at Winston Churchill's books on WWII and found the images to be way too tiny to be of any use.

What really needs to be done is for Mobipocket to come out with a new version of their reader that is written fresh from the start. The way it's written, it has a host of bugs that cannot be fixed unless what we have now is scrapped and started over. This would also give them a chance to fix the image issues and make sure that any new eBooks have large enough images. Can you imagine that map of Europe on a 9.7" eink screen, how even more unreadable it will be? Most of the bugs/flaws are due to a 64k block limit when going forward/backward in the eBooks. Thus, they have to limit the physical size of the images otherwise it breaks this block size. They break the eBooks up into 64k blocks supposedly for speed. But what good is speed if it causes too many issues. If they did away with that, they could have larger images and working page numbers among other fixes.

Well, like, it doesn't do everything I want it to do. I would like the ability to pan and zoom an image. A map of Europe rendered to 5"x3.5" is useless to me. I spend a fortune every year with Amazon and I can't imagine that they give a damn what I do with my Kindle as long as I don't hack the DRM or try to defraud them in any way--which I certainly have no intention of doing. If someone built some software to improve the Kindle, where's the harm? Igor did a lot more hacking of the Kindle that I ever will. I just want to be able to see the pictures.

By the way, I did register my complaint with Amazon and I got no reply.

Dave E

You really haven't thought this through at all have you?

You were imagining hacking up an application to allow viewing pictures embedded in books? Well how exactly would that application pan and zoom pictures protected by DRM without hacking the DRM?

Or did you imagine you were going to extend the existing book reader application on the platform? Well ditto the above comment. You'd have to hack that application's DRM system, the one thing they're clearly out to protect, the crown jewel of the platform, to gain access to un-protected content so you can pan and zoom it.

Either way, once you showed everyone your mad hacking skillz how exactly would that code not be used to pull images and text from books?

So where did you imagine Amazon was not going to care about your activities???

You need to realize that images have always been the incestuous-love-child-kept-chained-under-the-stairs of the ebook industry. High quality images worth panning and zooming are big. Have you noticed Amazon offering up any Manga? Whispernet isn't unlimited bandwidth and they like that "On your Kindle in under a minute" tag line. Your desires may be laudable "I want my pictures and see them too!" but they run smack into the harsh realities of the technology.

You need to realize that images have always been the incestuous-love-child-kept-chained-under-the-stairs of the ebook industry. High quality images worth panning and zooming are big. Have you noticed Amazon offering up any Manga? Whispernet isn't unlimited bandwidth and they like that "On your Kindle in under a minute" tag line. Your desires may be laudable "I want my pictures and see them too!" but they run smack into the harsh realities of the technology.

It is a downside of Whispernet that it makes file size significant again, just when mega GB memory cards rendered that mindset otherwise obsolete.

An example of a useful hack that would not get in the way of DRM is the replacement of the font with one that supported non-Latin languages. I can see why Amazon does not want to deal with multiple fonts, but that is exactly why a hack may be the best solution. If the new font does not work you only have yourself to blame, but if it does work you have an additional capability that is needed by only a tiny minority of Kindle users (but very important to those who need it).

Why? Most other versions of the MobiPocket Reader allow one to use any TrueType font; I'm sure that it would be a relatively minor change for Amazon to add this functionality to the Kindle. The basic "philosophy" of MobiPocket has always been to permit the user to determine the "appearance" of the book - the font it's displayed in, justification, margin widths, etc - rather than to have it "hardwired".

IMHO lack of TT font support is currently one of the most significant restrictions of the Kindle compared to other devices with MobiPocket support.

Why? Most other versions of the MobiPocket Reader allow one to use any TrueType font; I'm sure that it would be a relatively minor change for Amazon to add this functionality to the Kindle.

I am in favor of the "user decides" approach, but Amazon has gone for a strictly controlled environment which has advantages from their point of view. One of the biggest is fewer support requests (user installed fonts are a nightmare to support, because most of them are bootlegged and so Amazon couldn't even ask the customer to send them the fonts). I have previously suggested that Amazon might make some extra profit from the Kindle by selling font packages. This would get round the bootlegged fonts issue, but even a limited number of fonts may increase support load too much.

Actually adding multiple fonts might be trivial to implement, or might involve some work. On the iLiad, there are many fonts available to Linux apps but only two available to Java apps like the MobiPocket Reader. Again on the iLiad, you can add your own TT fonts for Linux but only at the risk of crashing the boot sequence.

You were imagining hacking up an application to allow viewing pictures embedded in books? Well how exactly would that application pan and zoom pictures protected by DRM without hacking the DRM?

Or did you imagine you were going to extend the existing book reader application on the platform? Well ditto the above comment. You'd have to hack that application's DRM system, the one thing they're clearly out to protect, the crown jewel of the platform, to gain access to un-protected content so you can pan and zoom it.

Either way, once you showed everyone your mad hacking skillz how exactly would that code not be used to pull images and text from books?

So where did you imagine Amazon was not going to care about your activities???

You need to realize that images have always been the incestuous-love-child-kept-chained-under-the-stairs of the ebook industry. High quality images worth panning and zooming are big. Have you noticed Amazon offering up any Manga? Whispernet isn't unlimited bandwidth and they like that "On your Kindle in under a minute" tag line. Your desires may be laudable "I want my pictures and see them too!" but they run smack into the harsh realities of the technology.

Young man, I have been a hardware engineer for more than 30 years. Let me give you a piece of advice: Do not live your life in fear of lawyers. There is a reason God gave you balls. Use them once in awhile.

Here is the hack I want. It has nothing to do with DRM or Whispernet:

Imagine an application (in place of this "demo") that does the following: When I hit Shift-SYM it takes a screenshot of the current 800x600 image and divides it into four quadrants, each 400x300. Then as I hit the Next Page key it takes each quadrant in turn, blows it up to 800x600, and displays it. Next Page and Prev Page cycle through the quadrants. The Back key would take be back to where I was originally. This could be recursive, such that if the exploded quadrant was not large enough I could hit Shift-SYM again and blow that one up, etc.

I fully recognize the limitations due to the resolution of the original image. There is nothing we can do about that unless the hi-res image is baked into the original ebook. However, my limited experiments with blowing up screenshots in PhotoShop have convinced me that this idea has some merit. It is certainly better than what they have now.

I'll give $500 to the first person who figures out how to do this, sends me the working code and gets it to work on my Kindle. Lab126 employees exempted.

The problem is that the Kindle's eBook format AZW is just a slightly modified Mobipocket format. And thus you have the issue of old technology developed for screen of a small size such as PDA and cell phones. So images tend to be small when dealing with a 6" eink screen. I was looking at Winston Churchill's books on WWII and found the images to be way too tiny to be of any use.

Since Amazon has full control and can update the readers the format can do anything they want. There is no reason for an awz file to have small images since it does not have to be built for many devices.

Quote:

What really needs to be done is for Mobipocket to come out with a new version of their reader that is written fresh from the start. The way it's written, it has a host of bugs that cannot be fixed unless what we have now is scrapped and started over. This would also give them a chance to fix the image issues and make sure that any new eBooks have large enough images.

The reader is not the problem. The format specification is. So they have to introduce a new format in the same way that Amazon has introduced a new format.

Quote:

Most of the bugs/flaws are due to a 64k block limit when going forward/backward in the eBooks. Thus, they have to limit the physical size of the images otherwise it breaks this block size. They break the eBooks up into 64k blocks supposedly for speed.

They do it because the specification says it should be done. The blocks do not matter if the specification defines images that can be saved in more than one block.

Quote:

But what good is speed if it causes too many issues. If they did away with that, they could have larger images and working page numbers among other fixes.

AZW could easily implement the image zoom feature already built into Mobipocket book reader and already available for books in the topaz structure. It is stupid not to. I do like the automatic doubling feature. That was a nice touch but there should be zoom as well.

Young man, I have been a hardware engineer for more than 30 years. Let me give you a piece of advice: Do not live your life in fear of lawyers. There is a reason God gave you balls. Use them once in awhile.

Here is the hack I want. It has nothing to do with DRM or Whispernet:

I have no clue why you think I have no balls because of lawyers. I said Amazon has a standing offer to de-authorize access to all the ebooks you've bought from them for your Kindle if you hack the platform in a manner they don't like. No mention of lawyers, they just send the kill order and zap!

Do I believe them? You bet. They've zapped digital content I've purchased from them before. I have no doubt of their sincerity this time either.

Why the datum about 30 years hardware engineering experience? It doesn't add to the discussion since it seems even with that background you can't hack it yourself Daddy-O. Or are you stating that because you have 30 years experience you'd actually be able to pay the $500 clams, or was that USD, or EUR?

And again, why do you think reaching in and grabbing the screen contents isn't a violation of the DRM system? Someone could use the hot key code you mentioned to feed "Next Page" keys into the Kindle book viewer app and then scarf down all the screens for a book onto a storage card. A bit of OCR and poof: DRM free content.

In any case what are the other details of the offer?

Are you planning on paying by Paypal? Or some other means? A meet at Starbucks and five Benjamin's under the table perhaps?

Since the payment is over $200, will the hacker be required to fill out a W-9 and return it to you prior to payment? After all, you're legally required to file a 1099-MISC to report the payment to the IRS to ensure the Hacker is paying their income taxes.

In addition, is the Hacker required to send you a copy of their Social Security card or Employment Authorization Document (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employm...ation_Document) to prove they are legally entitled to work in America? Or does your lack of respect for the law extend to hiring illegal workers?

Or is your offer open only to Hackers physically located outside the USA?

And speaking of employment, what proof does the Hacker need to present to prove they don't work for "Lab126" as you require?

Are you indemnifying the Hacker from legal action if Amazon zaps your content or the content of anyone else that uses the code?

Will the code ownership transfer to you, remain with the Hacker or do you expect it to be open sourced? If open sourced, do you place expectations on where it is hosted?

If your Kindle hardware has to be replaced does the Hacker have to re-install the code on the new Kindle?

If Amazon upgrades the software on your Kindle and the code breaks does the Hacker have to fix it and re-install it? Or if you Kindle is rendered incapacitated by the upgrade process does the Hacker have to help you repair your Kindle? If the Kindle is un-repairable does the Hacker owe you a new Kindle?

Is there a time limit or expiration on the offer? If you decide to sell your Kindle and purchase something like a CyBook is the offer still standing?